Order vs. Craziness

In a book, there is nothing like the order it has or the way it follows events. Every book follows a certain chain of events, they can be jumbled up or in chronological order. Then again, the book can jump from present to past, to more recent past and so on. We can observe this variation in the following of events when we compare the books: “Coming Through Slaughter “ by Michael Ondaatje and “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald. In “The Great Gatsby” the author sticks to a way of writing were the events go in chronological order throughout most of the book, except for the occasional flashback.  We can observe this when Fitzgerald tells us: “It was this night that he told me the strange story of his youth with Dan Cody.”(148) In this passage, Fitzgerald is forewarning his readers that the character in question will tell a story from his past. But, in the book “Coming Through Slaughter “ the book, much like its main character, is written in disaster. This book maintains no particular order, it comes and goes jumping from past to present. You never really know who is the speaker or who’s memory is being replayed. In other words, this book is as crazy written as the personality of Buddy Bolden.